Motherboard buying advice: Socket 775, built in video with 1080p capability, DDR3

[at2u]

It seems that most computer buyers don't realize how much power they waste (and how much money it costs them over the years) by using a video card instead of buying a motherboard with built on video. I'm looking for a name brand motherboard (Asus, Abit, Gigabyte, EVGA, Intel, MSI, etc) that can play 1080p smoothly with its built on video. I don't do any gaming.
Perhaps I should first look at what video chipsets will do that?
Then search for motherboards that use those chipsets?
When you go to vendor's websites they usually don't have the DVI OUT option in their search parameters.

DDR-3 has lower power consumption as well as minor improvements in performance (also its often even cheaper than DDR-2 right now) so hopefully the motherboard will use DDR-3 memory. 4 memory slots would be nice but with 4gb chips so common now 2 slots would be fine.

Firewire, USB-3, E-Sata are all nice but I can get cheap PCI-Ex1 cards for those If I need them later. (Of course when USB-3 catches on you'll only need 1 USB-3 plug on your device that will output to a hub that supplies however many devices you use. Thunderbolt has far more capabilities.)

ATX, M-ATX, Micro-ATX should all be fine. I'm not sure if an ATX board normally consumes more power than smaller boards everything else being the same. Perhaps someone knows?

I wanted to use Socket 775 because the CPU's are so cheap on the used market. I haven't seen any i5, i7 CPU's going for much less than $100 on the used market whereas the Socket 775 Core 2 Duo's often go for as little as about $40. I don't need the higher CPU speed right now.

 

[jjmIII]

S775/DDR3 Mobos

I just bought this MSI, but it's not here yet.

Welcome to Anandtech! Only took you 8 months to post .

 

[IntelEnthusiast]

This is information on the Intel DQ45CB board as this is a socket 775 and may still be fairly easy to find. This information covers any board using our Intel® GMA 4500 graphics. This can be found on page 18 of the TPM.

The Intel GMA 4500 graphics controller features the following:​

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High quality texture engine

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DirectX10* and OpenGL* 2.0 compliant

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Shader Model 4.0

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3D Graphics Rendering enhancements

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1.6 dual texture GigaPixel/sec max fill rate

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16-bit and 32-bit color

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Vertex cache

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Video

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Hi-Definition playback (partial hardware acceleration for MPEG-2, full hardware

acceleration for VC1 and AVC)
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Dynamic Video Memory Technology (DVMT) 5.0 uses system memory

depending on the OS and the amount of memory installed
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Product Description
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Display

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Supports digital and analog displays up to 2048 x 1536 at 75 Hz refresh

(QXGA); also supports 1920 x 1080 resolution for full High Definition video
playback quality​

⎯ Dual independent display support

I hope this answers your question on the graphics. There were only a couple boards that supported DDR 3 that we made and I dont know of any of them that supported on-board graphics.

Christian Wood
Intel Enthusiast Team
​

 

[at2u]

S775/DDR3 Mobos

I just bought this MSI, but it's not here yet.

Welcome to Anandtech! Only took you 8 months to post .

-----------
Well thank you! 8 months is better than 9 months.
The MSI link doesn't work in Firefox or Opera today Aug 16. But then again I've found many addresses aren't going through today so it may be my end.

 

[at2u]

I should have just asked you for the MSI mother board model number. duh.

 

[at2u]

I hope this answers your question on the graphics. There were only a couple boards that supported DDR 3 that we made and I dont know of any of them that supported on-board graphics.
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Yeah - I realize insisting on DDR3 is going to make things more difficult. I may have to relax that if I have no luck.

 

[VirtualLarry]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813138315

I built a couple of rigs around that board, it was only $40 with FS when I bought it.

I think the board is decent, although I cannot find a BIOS setting for selecting between S1 and S3 sleep. When Win7 goes into sleep mode, it draws 35W on my KAW, so I think it's doing S1 sleep, not S3 (STR). My other desktops spin down the HD and fans, and go into S3 sleep, and take less than 5W.

It has the X4500 chipset, which in Intel infinite wisdom, does NOT do 1080P decoding in the chipset. For that you need the G45/X4500HD, the "HD" is important. But there are precious few G45 boards, because of the premium that Intel charges.

Thankfully, all is not lost, as a C2D at 3.0Ghz should be able to easily decode 1080P in software. So drop in an E5200, and OC it to 240FSB at stock volts, and run it at 3.0Ghz. That's what I'm doing.

That board doesn't have vcore adjustment, but it does have FSB adjustment. Most (but not all) E5200s will do 3.0Ghz on stock voltage.

Edit: The board does only have VGA output, and only two SATA ports. That might be a limitation. But at the time I purchased it, it was the cheapest G41 S775 board on Newegg.

 

[at2u]

Here's the link that you posted.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813138315

Here's what turns up in my browser's Address Bar when I click on it. (Didn't work.)
http://detonator.dynamitedata.com/c...com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813138315

When I copied and pasted the text it didn't go through. Can you tell me what the make and model was please?
You said it was $40 with FS. What's FS?
I noticed a lot of boards with VGA output. Is that a limitation when playing 1080p I wonder?

 

[at2u]

OK - the link didn't get posted right. Here it is in text form:

detonator.dynamitedata.com/cgi-bin/redirect.pl?user=u00000687&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.newegg.com%2FProduct%2FProduct.aspx%3FItem%3DN82E16813138315

 

[jjmIII]

I should have just asked you for the MSI mother board model number. duh.

MSI G41M-P26 LGA 775 Intel G41 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard

Search: N82E16813130556 on Newegg.com

 

[at2u]

Looks like great value for only 50 bucks!

Intel GMA X4500 is supposed to support 1080p. I wonder if there are complaints from users out there - if there's any stalling or stuttering. I think the highest frame rate commonly used is 30fps. I would imagine that's taxing on the system because my present system plays 30fps a lot worse than 24fps. And does the lack of a DVI output make significant difference? Why wouldn't they include a DVI plug?

As an aside, when some motherboards have both DVI and VGA outputs, does this mean one could hook up 2 monitors?

And, and I know this is off topic, are there any PCI-Ex1 video cards that output to 2 monitors at a lower resolution (1280 x 1024). I was thinking that later I might run a triple monitor setup using the motherboard video output for the main, high quality (1980 x 1024) monitor with the other lesser quality monitors being run by a basic video card.

And does anybody know if its possible to turn off the video card somehow so it doesn't draw power when I don't need the additional monitors? I would have thought Windows would have that option in Control Panel, Power Options, so you could be running diagnostics, antivirus scans, download torrents....all those things that we often do when we're away from the computer. Perhaps, as the public's awareness grows regarding power consumption they will demand control over power being consumed by the video card or the built on video on the motherboard. Or perhaps there is some software control over this?

 

[Iron Woode]

Looks like great value for only 50 bucks!

Intel GMA X4500 is supposed to support 1080p. I wonder if there are complaints from users out there - if there's any stalling or stuttering. I think the highest frame rate commonly used is 30fps. I would imagine that's taxing on the system because my present system plays 30fps a lot worse than 24fps. And does the lack of a DVI output make significant difference? Why wouldn't they include a DVI plug?

As an aside, when some motherboards have both DVI and VGA outputs, does this mean one could hook up 2 monitors?

And, and I know this is off topic, are there any PCI-Ex1 video cards that output to 2 monitors at a lower resolution (1280 x 1024). I was thinking that later I might run a triple monitor setup using the motherboard video output for the main, high quality (1980 x 1024) monitor with the other lesser quality monitors being run by a basic video card.

And does anybody know if its possible to turn off the video card somehow so it doesn't draw power when I don't need the additional monitors? I would have thought Windows would have that option in Control Panel, Power Options, so you could be running diagnostics, antivirus scans, download torrents....all those things that we often do when we're away from the computer. Perhaps, as the public's awareness grows regarding power consumption they will demand control over power being consumed by the video card or the built on video on the motherboard. Or perhaps there is some software control over this?

the GIGABYTE GA-G41MT-USB3 has dvi output so it can display HD content to an appropriate device.

most boards don't support vga and dvi at the same time.

if you buy a cheap video card that uses only the PCIe slot for power, then there will be little power draw.

hope this helps.

 

[Zargon]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813128489

I have that board, it struggles with 1080p sometimes. I also havent tweaked ANY settings in BIOS for it either

I am getting ready to toss a passive Low Profile 5450 in it to help it out cuz I snagged it for 26 bucks open box on the Egg.

they use about 2w when idle, so I wouldnt worry about it if you get a 54/5/64/65xx HD radeon

 

[Iron Woode]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813128489

I have that board, it struggles with 1080p sometimes. I also havent tweaked ANY settings in BIOS for it either

I am getting ready to toss a passive Low Profile 5450 in it to help it out cuz I snagged it for 26 bucks open box on the Egg.

they use about 2w when idle, so I wouldnt worry about it if you get a 54/5/64/65xx HD radeon

what cpu and how much ram are you using?

I built a G41MT-D3 system using an E6700 (pentium dual core) and 2 gigs of DDR3. I tested it out with a HD4350 by using it as my HTPC. Worked great with XPMCE2005. I sold the system minus the video card and tuner card.